


The Cup, the Spear

by levendis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Dubious Consent, Episode Related, Mind Control, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5000140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wounded king and the questing hero - this has happened before. Spoilers for "Before the Flood".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cup, the Spear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scriptscribbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptscribbles/gifts).



Lines can get blurred after so much time spent adrift in the universe. Wires get crossed. Add in a few dozen instances of head injuries, mind control, general physical and/or emotional trauma, the dissolution of reality, parallel universes, paradoxes, not to mention regeneration’s periodic shake of the mental dice, well. Things can get knocked loose.  
  
The Doctor, standing in a haunted underwater base, finding himself somewhat carried away, speaks without quite thinking. As he tends to do. He’d meant, what had he meant, he’d intended to express his admiration, his hopefully somewhat tempered but honestly unrepentant excitement. In a sensible way, such as the people would understand. It comes out more than a shade wrong.  
  
What does that even mean, ‘kiss it to death’? Where had that come from? He’s not sure he really wants to know. It had made sense at the time. Half of him is aware that those were not his words to say, half of him is willing to believe in the sentiment.  
  
After so long adrift, certain suggestions are more readily received.  
  
  
  
It’s possible to forget, occasionally, the precise delineation between awe and admiration, terror and thrill. Hatred can bring pleasure, fear is a sort of excitement. Things get jumbled.  
  
The Doctor needs a villain to become what he’s meant to be, and that’s been true for a very, very long time. There’s a correlating possibility that lurks just half a step over. Missy knows it, has always known it. Others as well. The line between ‘need’ and ‘want’. How often desire very nearly comes into play.  
  
The dark, the sword, the forsaken, the temple. And beneath the coordinates, something else. He steps carefully down the stairs, into the cold quiet of the church. 'Worship’ can mean wildly different things, depending on the context. If there’s one thing he knows, after all this time, it’s the ambiguity of meaning.  
  
Into the shadows, towards the monster, carrying the monster inside himself. The thing that nestles in so neatly next to all his other Things, all his fear and love and will. Feeling a certain sort of anticipation. Because this is meant to happen, isn’t it. This is the fixed point. History curling around them. They are the stones thrown into the river.  
  
The monster is beautiful, in their way. All heavy bone and cable, too big and too much, out of scale with this planet. Slow, obstinate, unavoidable. The monster looms over him; the Doctor bends back. Push, pull, two sides to every coin, et cetera, et cetera.  
  
Time unhooks, stretches. The Doctor opens his mouth but no words come out, this time. He bends back. The thin line between cowering and bowing and stalling. Things get jumbled, occasionally.  
  
Prentis could have extrapolated on the allure of submission, but Prentis is dead. Will be dead. Will have been - whatever. And Prentis had looked at him like he thought the Doctor was the sort of person to wield the whip, so no sense putting much stock in what he’d have to say. The Doctor would say something about David and Goliath, personally, if he could remember how to formulate sounds out of thoughts.  
  
His mind turning, turning. Beneath the obvious - CLARA PLAN DO MAKE NOW GO CLARA - something lurking. Secondary, tertiary thoughts, fractalling out. Do they know, does the Fisher King know, the weight of mythology their name carries? Which came first, the creature or the story? Are they playing out some ancient narrative, here, now, the wounded king and the questing hero? Complete with an undercurrent of homoeroticism.  
  
Sexuality coded as violence is not unique to the human race. He’s met Saint Sebastian, the truth is never quite that alluring, but still. Still. There’s something here, isn’t there. Possibly, probably, very hopefully just something that came packaged with the coordinates. Just an echo he is amplifying.  
  
(And is that what the monster wants? Is that the point? Can they feel this, the tension in him, the ache, the awe? So many questions, so very few answers he’s willing to accept.)  
  
And then - the moment ends. Time snaps forward like a rubber band. Things come together, like they tend to. And he erases it, eventually, jettisons as much as he can stand to lose. Brain scrubbed pink and raw. If he does remember - which, okay, still getting used to the sonic glasses, and have you ever tried to wipe your own mind? It’s borderline impossible to get right - if he _does_ remember, if that feeling ever comes back. It’ll be easy to brush aside, won’t it. So many variables, so many mitigating factors. Things can get mixed up, is all. It’s one of the basic side-effects of time travel. It happens to everyone. Right? Right.


End file.
